FROM DINGY CELLS TO DAYLIGHT ... A DREAM far from REALITY

" The day everyone in India gets a toilet, I shall know that our country has reached the pinnacle of progress," famously said Jawaharlal Nehru; a dream that is yet to be fulfilled by a nation which celebrated 70 glorious years of its Independence in 2017.

     On 7th September, India's Parliament passed a law prohibiting the employment of individuals as manual scavengers by prescribing stringent punishment including imprisonment upto 5 years.

     Manual scavenging, a job that is considered worst and wretched in India, still prevails in its soil which serves as a source of livelihood to many of its citizens. It refers to the practice of manually cleaning, carrying and disposing or handling, in any manner human excreta from dry latrines and sewers. Manual scavenging are amongst the most disadvantaged communities in India and us evident in the parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Moreover, the lives of the pit workers are outrageous.  As in most other states, the occupation of scavenging is pointed to employing people who are Dalits or Backward classes.

 

    When we mosey along the reasons behind the existence of human scavenging, even today, we end up in the statement of 'Insanitary latrines'. These are latrines with dearth of water, where the excreta is forced to be removed physically. It is here, that the role of manual scavengers comes to play. 

     On the heels of commission of such atrocious and nefarious jobs, it's te health factor that takes a toll. This issue haunts the workers deep, but, they remain helpless since they promised to keep the rumbling tummies of their families filled ! The threat of contagious infections is something that these scavenging workers have learned to live with.  In the absence of protective life gear, a silly needle poke is more than enough to put their lives at stake by acquiring bacterial and viral diseases such as Leptospirosis or even Hepatitis. Such occupational health hazards pose a menace to the survival of pit workers.

A woman worker in a village of Madhya Pradesh

  Another augmenting social issue that subsists among the community is the acute alcoholism that engulfs the lives of its users, not only through health risks but also through agony and family disorganization. Indeed, it's a fact that, no person in his conscious senses, would get into a closed, smelly pit filled to the brim with filth. Some  even claim that alcohol is a necessity to faint their active and actual senses before entering the dingy and muggy sewage filled latrines. For many of us, such practices may be hard to condone, along with which a mention of socio - economic impact of alcoholism is extremely required. Thus, the workers are on the verge of bite of jaws of death through fatality diseases. 

  For many others, TB and Asthma have become an inevitable part of their lives. Muscle aches, headaches and fever are also customary that they fail to raise alarm. 

  Another major contributor to the continued existence of this crime is the Indian railways. Many train carriages  have toilets, dropping the human excreta from trains in tracks; scavengers, thereby, are employed to clean these tracks manually. 

  To mention the daily wages, the workers are grappling with the increasing commodity price across the nation and the bustle to satisfy their hungry stomach. Saraswati, to mention her name, 62-year old, cleans the dry toilets for RS. 50 to RS. 60 per day. Tramping through the scruffy lanes of the village, she survives hardly with such low amount paid to her, every other day. This is called "Incredible India". She doesn't remember the last time her bare hands touched the statues of Gods lying on the wooden plank in her one - room house in Farukkhnagar Village of Ghaziabad District. 

     Though there is a law that was implemented in 1993 which bans such dirty jobs of human scavenging, its efficiency is still questioned due to the still living menial tasks like these. Though there has been an agreement that by 2017, India will be equipped with 100% toilets in every nook and corner of the nation, it's a dream far from achievement. The local self Government and Central Government are solely responsible for the devastating condition of the present day India, yet a ray of hope and room for improvement plays peek-a-boo in the country. The seizure of the right opportunities and the meeting of veracious needs for the toilet facilities and for the employment of pit workers, would-be a noble thing to fall back on.